[time-nuts] science projects

Jim Lux jimlux at earthlink.net
Thu Feb 9 04:23:08 UTC 2012


On 2/8/12 7:37 PM, Ray Xu wrote:
> Hi guys
>
> My 2 cents...from first person experience ;-) (although this doesn't have
> much to do with frequency standard-related science fair projects...)
>
> I am actually a high school junior in one of Dallas/Ft Worth, Texas's,
> suburbs, and I have been competing in ISEF science fairs for the last 3
> years.
>
>> From my experience, the engineering judges look for projects that are novel
> and can justify why this new method is better than mainstream methods.

You bet. I *am* an ISEF engineering judge, and you are exactly right. 
You need to know your field well enough to be able to explain why what 
you are doing is different, and why there's at least a chance of it 
being better.


> Besides that, it is almost like a "marketing fair" since the presentation
> style also plays a huge role.  In my opinion, high school ISEF science fair
> these days is not about "hey look at what I made", but its more like "how
> can it be done better and why should it replace mainstream technology".

At the top levels, it has never been "look what I made" (the perjorative 
term is "baking soda volcano").

I don't know that presentation style is super important, at least at 
ISEF: there are entries from all around the world, from places with all 
manner of cultural styles and technical display proficiency. Most 
notably, a lot of the entrants aren't speaking English and are using a 
translator of variable quality (i.e. they may be able to translate Urdu 
and English, but odds are, they aren't an engineer)

  What the judges look for is
- good explanation of what you did and why you did it  - getting back to 
the idea of picking a good topic that's novel (where time-nuts can help, 
eh?  research on background doesn't have to all be literature searches.. 
asking experts is good)
- responding to questions as asked - We all get trained (or have 
experience and share notes) on "stopping the elevator pitch"
- being able to answer obscure details about what you did (to root out 
the "third assistant bottle washer in professor so-and-so's lab" and the 
"kit builder")
- it being YOUR project (again, working as a team member in a university 
lab isn't going to be a winner for the fair.. good in real life, not 
good for competition)




>
> My project last year was essentially building a general purpose compact
> X-band radar system capable of distance and speed measurements.  My major
> application was its use as "no-physical-contact biomedical instruments".  I
> got 2nd place at regionals and didnt advance any farther than state.  In
> retrospect, I believe my weaknesses back then were because radars are
> nothing new; I just presented a new application and I feel like I could've
> presented my project better towards the judges.

Yes.. you basically built a measurement instrument that already existed. 
  If that had been incidental to your application, and you focused on 
the novelty of the application (e.g. detecting sleep apnea or something 
like that) it might have done better.

Or, if your radar was somehow novel in design (e.g. you didn't use a 
gunnplexer or DRO based door opening radar as the base, and it wasn't a 
simple FMCW homodyne)



  I believe the live demo of
> a part of the radar, showing how professionally made it was (custom PCBs,
> etc), and the detailed documentation binder were a huge plus to my project.

Yes and no.  live demo is always good (because it shows YOU did it), and 
face it, it's SHOWTIME

detailed documentation is good (shows good work practice, and if the 
judge picks a page at random and asks about it, and you can answer. 
I've judged software projects and done this, and the person had ZERO 
clue about what the module I was doing did and why it was there.)

Professionally made, maybe, maybe not. Depends on the context and what 
resources you had available to you.  I saw an amazing project last year 
that was literally built from scrap electronics the guys had scrounged 
at the junkyard in their third world country. I've never seen so many 
different kinds of connectors and ancient phenolic PC boards repurposed 
in my life.  But the darn thing worked and did what they wanted.  They 
got good marks on ingenuity and use of resources.  (Their project topic 
wasn't all that great, unfortunately..)

If you are living in Silicon Valley, and you show up with homemade PC 
boards or deadbug style construction, and you explained why that was the 
choice you made, rather than sending it out to any of a zillion fab 
houses around your house, that would be fine.

There's an awful lot of really disappointed entrants who have access to 
a top-notch lab, have gorgeous printouts and graphs, but did something 
mundane and repetitious.  This is really common in the biomed/molecular 
bio area, because it's sexy, and it's not too hard to get hooked up with 
someone with good lab facilities, but the field is moving so fast that 
you run the risk of doing what labs pay a technician $15/hr to do.  The 
student gets so caught up in the miracle of doing PCR and sequencing and 
stuff that they don't wind up doing any real science.



>
> This year, I'm working on making a monolithic CMOS THz imaging array with
> built-in signal processing integrated circuit.  (Just in case you're
> wondering, my I'm employeed at the TxACE center at UTD as a intern).  My
> job is to basically design on the transistor level and integrate the signal
> processing circuit into the CMOS THz imaging array.  At the end, I plan to
> use this project and compete in STS, Siemens, and ISEF.  Unlike my last
> year's project, monolithic THz imaging arrays with on-chip signal
> processing is something relatively new.

I assume you've seen the new IEEE transactions on THz stuff edited by 
Peter Siegel?  If you haven't, you can be sure some of the judges have. 
(although I won't be judging your project if I recognize it)  Be careful 
about the "it has to be all your project to win" thing.

>
> Why is a teenager (me) doing on this list?  Because I have a passion for
> electronics, especially analog and RF ever since when I was very young.  I
> love what I'm doing and I dont plan on stopping.
>
> Ok I'll stop rambling now...sorry for the long email guys...
>
> Ray Xu
> KF5LJO
>
> On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 8:03 PM, Chris Albertson
> <albertson.chris at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> The number one TN science fair project would have to be measuring the
>> speed of light using some simple, inexpensive method such as
>> reflecting sunlight from rotating mirrors
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Jim Lux<jimlux at earthlink.net>  wrote:
>>>   While delayed, I would think that the signal freqs would still need to
>> be
>>> maintained...  hmmm, maybe not...   interesting science project...
>> anyone?
>>>   anyone?  ;-)
>>>
>>> Jerry
>>>
>>> ----
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm waiting to see a good time-nuts project at the science fair. (at any
>>> level up to ISEF)
>>>
>>> There's a lot of good ones out there (perhaps not on the scale of tvb's
>>> experimental demonstration of gravitational effects on atomic clocks)
>> that
>>> would lend themselves to execution by everyone from 6th to 12th grade.
>>>   Clearly, since people do spend their entire professional life doing this
>>> and write dissertations on it, it can be up to ISEF or Siemens Talent
>> Search
>>> standards.
>>>
>>> Maybe we could come up with a suggested list and start shopping it
>> around.
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Chris Albertson
>> Redondo Beach, California
>>
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>
>
>





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